MAP: Where Income Inequality Is the Worst in Philly

We’re starting to wonder why the Occupy movement didn’t start in Philadelphia.

For the umpteenth time in the last few years, a study has just come out showing that the Philly region is one of most unequal areas in the country. The Urban Institute looked at income and educational inequality in the nation’s largest “commuting zones” — which are similar to metropolitan areas — and found that Philadelphia had the second-highest degree of disparity in 2010.

The think tank developed a score for an area’s level of inequality based on four factors: its average household income, homeownership rate, median housing value, and percentage of residents who have a college degree. Dallas, Baltimore, Columbus and Houston also rank in the top five most unequal commuting zones in the country.

If you don’t believe that inequality is a massive problem here, check out just a few of the stories that Citified and our sister blogs have written in the last couple years:

• Rich White People Self-Segregate More in Philly ’Burbs Than Most Anywhere Else
• Economic Segregation Alive and Well in Philadelphia
• Philadelphia Is in Top 10 Most Unequal Metros
• Want Your Kids to Grow Up Rich? Move to Bucks
• Study: In Pennsylvania, Very Rich Getting Richer, Everybody Else Getting Poorer

So while The Urban Institute’s research may not be news in Philly, sadly, what is new is an interactive map that the organization created, which shows where inequality is the worst — neighborhood by neighborhood — and how it has changed from 1990 to 2010.

As the study’s authors noted, Philadelphia, along with Chicago and Detroit, “lost more residents from their [lowest socioeconomic] tracts than any other cities from 1990 to 2010, but each also gained over 100,000 in its [highest socioeconomic] tracts at the same time. These old industrial commuting zones with persistent black-white segregation grew fast at their privileged edges while people fled their oldest and most distressed neighborhoods.”